Far Pavilions (93 page)

The two exchanged a few words, and the second rider having dismounted, Ash took over his horse and told the
khansamah
of the rest-house that he would be away for a couple of nights, but that his friend's servant would remain to keep an eye on his luggage, and must be provided with bed and food. The horse carried a small bundle strapped to the back of the saddle, and once safely out of sight of the rest-house Ash stopped in the first clump of trees to change into the clothes it contained, before riding on across country in the guise of a Kashmiri pundit.

Reaching Hasan Abdal in the twilight, he bought food at a wayside stall and let his horse rest and graze while he ate his evening meal on a grassy hillside overlooking the tomb of Lalla Rookh. There was still another thirty-odd miles to be covered, but as Zarin would not be leaving Mardan before sunset there was no need for haste. He lingered by the quiet tomb, listening to the horse cropping the parched grasses and watching the light fade from the far hills while the sky bedecked itself with stars, until at last the moon rose in the hot dust-scented dark. With that bone-white glare lighting the road, it was possible to press on at a fair pace, and the rest and the cooler air had put so much heart into the horse that it brought Ash to the tall old house on the outskirts of Attock in far less time than he had anticipated.

The house stood in a large walled garden, and its owner, Koda Dad's sister Fatima-Begum, was an elderly widow who had often entertained her nephews and their friends there, and this would not be the first time that Ash had stayed under that hospitable roof. Tonight the old lady had already retired, for the hour was late, and as the gatekeeper said that the Risaidar-Sahib Zarin Khan had not yet arrived, Ash left his horse to be stabled and walked on down through the sleeping town, past the walls of the Emperor Akbar's great stone fort that had guarded the ferry for close on two centuries. The descendants of the first ferry-men still plied the trade, of their forefathers, but they would soon be gone, for the English had constructed a bridge of boats over the Indus and nowadays nine tenths of the traffic crossed by that.

Ash stopped on a turn of the road from where he could see the bridge, and squatted down in a patch of shadow to wait for Zarin. Few people were abroad at that hour, and except for a sentry on duty at the bridgehead, only Ash seemed to be awake; and listening. The resonant voice of the ‘Father of Rivers’ as it foamed through the Attock gorge filled the night with thunder, but the sound of horses' hooves carried far, and Ash's ears caught that beat above the water noises.

As it came nearer it changed to a hollow drumming on the wooden planks of the bridge, and he saw that there was not one horseman, but two. Zarin (there was no mistaking the set of that head and shoulders) had brought someone with him. But despite the brightness of the moonlight it was not until they breasted the rise that Ash realized who the other rider was, and leaping up he ran down the road to grasp Koda Dad's stirrup with both hands and touch his forehead to the old man's foot.

‘I came to assure myself that all was well with you, my son,’ said Koda Dad, leaning down to embrace him.

‘And also to hear news of that which was once Gulkote,’ grinned Zarin, dismounting.

‘That too,’ said Koda Dad in a tone of reproof. ‘But I have been anxious for you ever since we learned too late what manner of folk it was whom you were escorting across Hind. If anyone had recognized you there might still have been great danger, and it is good to see that you are safe and well.’

It was like a homecoming, thought Ash, as he walked up the moon-blanched road with Zarin on one side of him and Koda Dad riding at a foot's pace on the other. After the thirsty wastes of Rajputana the very sound of the river was both refreshment and reassurance; and best of all was the knowledge that he was in the company of two people with whom he could talk freely of Gulkote, for both had been so intimately linked with his childhood that there was little the did not know about it.

Except for certain facts connected with Juli, there was nothing that he could not tell them about the happenings of the last eight months; and that alone, apart from his pleasure at seeing them again, brought him an enormous feeling of relief. The need to unburden himself to someone who would fully understand the complexities of his situation had been building up in him for many weeks, though until a few days ago he had not realized how strong it had become, or how necessary it was to his peace of mind to be able to pour it all out and rid himself of doubts and guilt and anxieties – and ghosts.

33

There had been little conversation that night, as all three travellers were tired, and once in bed Ash had slept better than he had for many weeks.

His bed had been put out on a partially screened roof for greater coolness, and awakening in the pearly hot-weather dawn he looked down from the parapet and saw Zarin at his prayers in the garden below. Waiting until these were over, he went down to join him and walk and talk under fruit trees that were full of birds greeting the new day with a clamour of cawing and song. The talk had been mainly of the Regiment, for the subject of Gulkote could keep until Koda Dad was ready to listen, and Zarin had closed the long gap of the past year by bringing Ash up to date on a number of matters that for one reason or another he had not wished to entrust to a bazaar letter-writer. Details concerning his personal life and items of news about various men of Ash's old troop: the possibility of trouble with the Jówaki Afridis over the construction of a cart-road through the Khyber Pass, and the doings of those who had provided an escort for the
Padisha
's eldest son, the Prince of Wales, when he visited Lahore during the past cold weather.

The Prince, said Zarin, had been so pleased by the bearing and behaviour of the Guides that he had written to his august mother, who had replied by appointing him Honorary Colonel to the Corps, and commanding that in future the Guides should be styled ‘The Queen's Own Corps of Guides' and wear on their colours and appointments the Royal Cypher within the Garter (Zarin's translation of this last would have startled the College of Heralds considerably). By the time they had eaten the morning meal the sun was up, and after they had paid their respects to the lady of the house – who received them seated behind an ancient and much broken
chik
through which she could be plainly seen, but which preserved, if only technically, the rules of
purdah
– they were free to seek out Zarin's father.

It was already too hot to be abroad, so the three of them had spent the day in the old, high-ceilinged room that had been allotted to Koda Dad because it was the coolest in the house. Here, protected from the heat by kus-kus tatties, and sitting cross-legged on the uncarpeted floor of polished
chunam
that was pleasantly cool to the touch, Ash told for the third time the tale of his journey to Bhithor, this time with few evasions, telling it all from the beginning and leaving nothing out – save only that he had lost his heart to the girl who had once been known to all of them as ‘Kairi-Bai’.

Zarin had interrupted the tale with questions and exclamations, but Koda Dad, never a talkative man, had listened in silence, though it was to him rather than to Zarin that Ash spoke. The discovery of Hira Lal's earring had drawn a grunt of surprise from him and the account of Biju Ram's death a grim nod of approval, while a smile had commended Ash's handling of the Rana's attempt at blackmail. But apart from that he had offered no comments, and when at last the tale was ended, he said only: ‘It was an ill day for Gulkote when its Rajah's heart was caught by the beauty of an evil and covetous woman, and many paid for his folly with their lives. Yet for all his faults he was a good man, as I know well. I am sad to hear that he is dead, for he was a good friend to me during the many years that I lived in his shadow: thirty-and-three of them… for we were both young men when we met. Young and strong. And heedless… heedless…’

He sighed deeply and fell silent again, and after a moment or two Ash realized, with an odd sensation of panic, that Koda Dad had fallen into the light sleep of old age. It was only then that he noticed for the first time how many physical changes had come about since their last meeting: the thinness of body that the voluminous Pathan dress had partially disguised, and the many new wrinkles that seamed that familiar face; the curiously fragile appearance of the parchment-coloured skin that had once been so brown and leathery, and the fact that under the brave scarlet dye, hair and beard were now snow-white… and very scanty.

Ash would have noticed this at once had he not been so taken up with his own affairs, yet now that he had done so the change both shocked and frightened him, bringing home to him as nothing else could have done the shortness of the human span and the terrifying swiftness of Time. It was as though he had come without warning upon one of those mile-stones that long after they are passed, stand out in one's memory as marking the end of a phase – or perhaps a turning point? – and something of this must have shown in his face, for when he looked away and caught Zarin's gaze there was both understanding and compassion in it.

‘It comes to all of us, Ashok,’ said Zarin quietly: ‘He is now well past his seventieth year. There are not many who live as long; and few who have been as contented with their lot. My father has been fortunate in that he has had a full life and a good one; which is surely as much as anyone can ask of God. May we two be granted the like.’

‘
Ameen,
’ said Ash under his breath. ‘But I – I did not realize… Has he been ill?’

‘III? This is not a sickness – unless old age be one. This is no more than the weight of years. And who is to say that he will not see many more of them? But among our people, seventy is accounted a great age.’

Ash knew that to be true. The men of the Border hills lived hard lives, and a tribesman was considered old at forty while his wife was often a grandmother before she was thirty, and Koda Dad had already exceeded the three-score-years-and-ten that had been promised to the descendants of Adam. Of late Ash had begun to think of life as far too long, and to see it in imagination as an endless road stretching away ahead of him and leading nowhere, along which he must walk alone; yet now, abruptly, he saw that it was also cruelly short, and was unreasonably shaken by this commonplace discovery. Zarin, who was still watching him and knew him well enough to follow his train of thought, said consolingly: ‘There is still myself, Ashok. And the Regiment also.’

Ash nodded without replying. Yes, there was still Zarin, and the Regiment: and when he was allowed to return to Mardan there would be Wally also, and Koda Dad's village lay only a mile or so beyond the Border and a short march away. Koda Dad, who had suddenly become so old… Studying the old Pathan's sleeping face, Ash saw the lines of character that were engraved there as clearly as the lines of time: the kindness and wisdom, the firmness, integrity and humour, written plain. A strong face; and a peaceful one. The face of a man who has experienced much and come to terms with life, accepting the bad with the good and regarding both as no more than a part of living – and of the inscrutable purpose of God.

Reviewing his own achievements by the light of Koda Dad's long and eventful life, it struck Ash with stunning force that they could be summed up as a brief list of sorry failures. He had begun by making an utter fool of himself over Belinda and ended by losing Juli. And in between he had failed George, proved himself to be an intractable and disappointing officer, and – indirectly –caused the death of Ala Yar. For had it not been for his quixotic behaviour in the matter of the carbines, Ala Yar would still be alive and probably, at that moment, gossiping comfortably with Mahdoo on the back verandah of a bungalow in Mardan.

To set against that it could be said that he had saved Jhoti's life, avenged the deaths of Hira Lal and Lalji, and succeeded in rescuing Karidkote's reputation and treasury from disaster. But that was poor compensation for the dismal tale of his previous failures; or for the fact that his brief and passionate love-affair with Juli could only add to her unhappiness in the life to which her own loyalty had doomed her – a life that he did not dare allow himself to think about.

There were few things, in these days, that he cared to look back on; and even less that he could look forward to. But among the former there had always been Koda Dad, a source of wisdom and comfort and a rock to lean upon. Koda Dad and Zarin, Mahdoo and Wally. Only four human beings out of all the teeming millions in the world; yet of immeasurable importance to him. And he was about to lose them. When Koda Dad and Zarin recrossed the Indus and Wally left for Mardan in a month's time, he would be unable to follow them, for they would have entered territory from which he himself was excluded until the Guides agreed to take him back again – which, for all he knew, might not be for years. If so, this could well be the last time he would ever see Koda Dad.

As for Mahdoo, he too was growing old and frail; and if Koda Dad, the immutable, could crumble in this fashion, how much more so could Mahdoo, who did not possess half the old Pathan's stamina and must be at least his equal in age? It did not bear thinking of. Yet he thought of it now, grimly and despairingly, seeing his life as a fragile house – an empty one, since there was no Juli – which once he had planned to cram with treasure. A house supported by four pillars, two of them now almost worn out and in the nature of things unlikely to last very much longer… When those two fell, as one day they must, the walls might still stand. But if a third were to fail, his case would be desperate, and if all went, the house would crash to the ground and break apart, exposing its emptiness.